The Kiss of Life, The Kiss of Death

     Crash! CJ did not see Mia fall, he had only heard it. In the time it took for the sound to hit his ears, and for this head to turn in her direction, she was already on the ground. It had only been a small party tonight; a few friends over to celebrate nothing more than their middle class ease. Through the forest of legs, he could see the way her familiar figure lay askew, with an arm crumpled beneath her and knew that she was not alright. Nobody fell like that and did not right themselves if they were alright. Panic started at his head and began to wash down his lanky frame.

     With his long legs, it only took a few strides for him to cover the distance of the room. So focused on Mia he took no notice of the rough shove he gave his paralyzed guest as they stood looking down at her, not yet being jolted to action.

He hit his knees in a skid, but took no notice of the burn that denim meeting carpet made against his skin. All of his senses were focused on Mia. His hands trembled in front of him for a moment, trying to decide how to make things right. Reaching up he brushed back a mass of her dark curls from her face and he could see her lips turning blue.

     "I am not a doctor", he thought, "What am I supposed to do?" The panic was well into his chest and he noticed his heart raced as he took a full beat to realize what was happening to his beloved friend.

     Mia was by no means a fragile girl. Lithe and athletic, despite her small stature, had always allowed her to keep up with most guys he knew. She played on his work softball team, was the one who introduced him to rock climbing, and rolled her eyes when he himself was hesitant to squash a bug. She was no hot house orchid. But like the mighty Samson, she had a weakness, her asthma.

     He had laughed when he first heard the term, “brittle asthma”, it sounded like something old ladies living in Florida had, not something that could affect her perfect picture of health. Only now, faced with a blue lipped Mia, did he realize just how unfunny it was. Struggling back to the day they discussed death and how they had each imagined they would die, he tried to recall her words. Her narrative floated back from long ago and was quiet through the fog of panic.  Concentrating he could now remember Mia assuring him she fine as long as she followed the medication regiment she took such pains to hide but was sometimes subject to severe and unexpected attacks. He had never seen her have an attack, but this must be what was happening now.

     The beat over, and the need to act suddenly cleared his mind, and he knew what to do. Turning to the stunned crowd, he was angered by their inaction. Singling out a co-workers wife, who still clutched a wine glass by its delicate stem, he barked at her to call 911. 

Turning his focus back to his charge, he delicately straightened out her body, clumsily tilted her chin back and lowered his head to listen. No breath to speak of as he looked down her body, which from this angle included everything normally covered by her shirt. The unexpected look at that which made her female was odd and slightly embarrassing for him. They had never been anything more than friends; in fact the best. He could tell her anything, and she had a pathological need to do the same. He knew everything about her except the touch of her hand and the taste of her lips.

     His assessment of her, minus the awkward observation, told him that in fact she was not breathing. He knew that he would not need to pump her chest, he would only need to breathe for her until the ambulance arrived. Turning his head to hers, their mouths perpendicular, he put his mouth over hers and blew.

Breathe

     It was in that instant that everything changed. As soon as the air rushed from between his lips, a rush of thoughts that were not his own flooded into him. The cacophony of thoughts clashed together like massive waves. The alien thoughts fought with his own for dominance. It was so jarring that he almost pulled back and broke contact except the first thought that broke through the mass of confusion was so shocking that he could not move. She loves him.

     In the three years that they had known each other, despite the fact that they had seen each other nearly everyday, except for the time that she had spent 10 days in Boston, it had not occurred to him that this was the truth. They had met while standing next to each other in line at a Chuck Palahniuk book signing. Both had arrived nearly four hours before the event, and after the conversation over their mutual excitement to meet their favorite author in the flesh had faded, their witty parlay lead to what they were today.

     It was in this early day of their relationship, that he had sensed that she was in it for the dating experience, but his subtle overtures that she was not what he was looking for and then a not so subtle internet chat, was the last time he had considered it. She had vehemently denied it and still likes to tease him to this day for assuming, “every girl he meets wants to jump his bones”.

     “How could this be?”, his own thought cut into the boggling revelation. How often had he heard her make it clear to those questioned them in a semi-joking manner that they were anything but just friends? Hadn’t she always asked and seemed genuinely interested in whichever girl he was currently dating in all earnestness? If this was so, then why make all the comments about the great ease it created between them to always know that they were just friends?

     Before he could formulate an answer to any of his own questions, her emotions surged behind her mere thoughts into him, testifying of the truth.  Roiling beneath her raw emotion were layers of her desire.  She would take his jacket from the back seat of the car while he ran into the bank and breath in his scent deeply, trying to memorize it.  She made special note of the way his fingers moved around the ear of the dog while they sat on the couch watching TV and thinking how much she wanted those fingers to touch her own skin. She would watch the subtle way his suck in the corner of his lip when contemplating an answer or the way he held his body as he walked across the room. She loved to hear the lilt in his voice he always adopted when he read to her her own blog posts aloud and could tell with a glance at his face exactly how tired he was. She was a student of all things him.

     Lights popped in the edge of his vision and he was forced to break contact with her. Panting, trying to catch his own breath, he was reeling from more than lack of oxygen. His analytical nature screamed for him to take a step back and try to figure out what was going on, but knew without the respirations he was providing, there would be no Mia to question. Not even waiting for the dizziness past, he again lowered his lips down to hers.

Breathe

     The foreign presence was back again, and this time there was no pause before the rush of emotion flooded him. She wants to be with him. He could hear snippets of the artificial narrative she composed to him in her head as she sometimes allowed herself to believe that they someday would be together. He could feel the anger and disappointment when he somehow failed to live up to what she expected of him in their fabricated romance, of which he had no idea he was in. He could feel her heart break every time he talked to her about a girl that was not her and the great lengths she took to seem excited for him. He could feel her misery when a text would come over on his phone that brought a smile to his face. He now knew the torture she felt that the other girl, a lesser girl got to be a part of that section of his life that she was barred access to. He could hear her axiom repeated in her mind, “It is better to sit for a half portion than not to eat at all”. Her need and want began to press down over his own.

Breathe

     How often had she thought about spanning the distance between their hands and feeling the smooth skin there? How often had she imagined when another touched her that it was truly his caress? Why had she denied herself this? Why had she not given in to the burning desire that consumed her waking thought and nightly dreams? She does not want to ruin things. She would rather have him still in her life than not there at all. She would rather live in a pseudo-relationship that fulfilled some of her needs than to feel the bitterness of loneliness and the feeling of not being understood. She needed him, he was her emotional crutch.

Breathe

     A scene he knew opened up before him, only when he saw it, it was from his eyes at the back of the room, seeing Mia perched on a stool at the front of the room. This time he could see himself standing brilliantly illuminated while the rest of the crowd melted together like a charcoal drawing that has gotten wet. This was Mia’s first reading. It was his prodding that she should take her love of books and crafting her words into art to the next level. For months, he encouraged her to use her skill for more than the exhaustive blog that she created. 

     Finally taking his advice, she shut down her blog and put proverbial pen to paper. A year later she sat perched upon the well worn stool in the very same book shop they met in, reading a passage from her own work aloud.

"I never knew love was so torturous. Love is now the constant source of all my misery. When you are not here, the physical separation is like acid slowly eating away at the essence of me. My being slowly erodes away as each moment slips by. I am only restored when you finally rejoin me. But only so I can be subjected to even more ruinous torture.

The mere act of being with you is more agony than the longest separation. In your presence, my skin cries out for your touch as if it were cracked and chapped and you held its only relief. My chest longs to feel your weight upon it, for then, and only then would I be able to breath freely. Breathing in your scent is sweet oblivious, so thick and complete that I could hide from all else there. My essence is so intertwined with yours, that I would scarcely know myself without you. It is only with you that I feel complete, as if all parts of me are now in place. It is only then that I can feel the perfection of my love."

     These words were not really from the forlorn Mr. Gunthrie to his beloved Miss Sally in regards to his unrequited love as she explained in her preface. He now knew the reason he shone so bright in this memory was because while the words were in fact about unrequited love, they were her own words from her journal, composed to him, the night she first realized she loved him, read especially to him and only him.

Breathe

     Something was there that she did not want him to see. Like a blur on the corner of the eye. Catching on to it, he turned his focus on it and watched as his attention seemed to dissolve the barrier that she had erected around it. Slowly dissipating until the protection around it was membrane thin. As the first pinhole burst in, her panic of discovery began to leak out. This only made him concentrate harder, for since the moment his lips had touched hers, he felt like he had some sense of control.

     Encased inside her barrier was something that he never expected but at this point had no more new shock to give to the revelation. This thing that was happening to him right now, was her ability, it was coming from her. This gift was something that she was not only aware of, but was something that she had some control over. She had used this ability before, but there were limitations. She could not hide anything once she chose to share. She could only share the gift by the touch of the lips. She had to give everything on one subject. Once she had tried to share with someone how much she loved cake and instead infused them with everything she ever knew about, saw, or tasted related to it. It was overwhelming.

Breathe

     She had decided since she was unable to tell him how much she cared to show him instead. She wanted him to see the depth and breathe of her love for him. But she knew that her one shot at making him love her came with risks. He would see everything.

     Suddenly he was overcome with the dark emotions she was trying to hide from him. He felt the jealousy in his mind for every time he had fallen into love's embrace with a woman that was not her. It was more than just the jealousy of his time, or jealousy of the intimacy that she did not get to share, but also an irrational and ugly jealousy that bred hatred for the woman that he was with. The emotion was so hot and bitter that it scared him to feel it rush through his mind. He longed  to pull away before he was forced to see more.  

    Before he could break, he saw her sifting through all that was supposed to be private. She wanted to know him completely, to have some sort of control over her helplessness.  She had felt guilty at first, only reading emails at his house when he left his email account open, or sneaking peeks at his text messages over his shoulder as he responded.  Soon, this became not enough information, there were holes in the story she burned to fill.  Slowly she began to stealthily observe every time he logged in, slowly piecing together his password until one day she finally figured it out.  Now she had a copy of each email sent directly to her phone.  Several months ago she had figured out a simple call to the cell company as CJ's "personal assistant" had enabled her to turn on the option to record his text messages on-line for a mere $2.99 surcharge.  Now she read more of his text messages than her own. 

Breathe

     He saw her systematically ruining every romantic relationship he ever tried to have, and some he had not known he had a chance at.  It had started good natured, acting only upon what she thought was in his best interest.  She would discourage certain types of girls from talking to him, or steering them to other friends that she considered more "suitable" matches.  If the other woman would not be dissuaded, she would befriend her and work on her downfall from within.  She would report back modified versions of conversations to CJ's ears, or let slip where this woman or that was spending her Saturday night and in who's company.  Loose lips sink ships indeed. 

     Soon her well meaning protection turned into an out and out offensive.  She began to deceive in both word and deed.  It was only small acts at first, such as occasionally deleting text message before he had a chance to read them.  Another nice option available from the webpage.  She would play victim at especially crucial times in newly forming relationships to force him to chose her, or use the coveted "we" a touch too often for comfort with the new woman to force her to show C.J. the jealousy he so greatly despised, drop condom wrappers into open purses at auspicious times so he would suspect she was less than true, and even made one girlfriend appear to be a kleptomaniac by systematically stealing objects from his house every time the unfortunate soul was over. 

Breathe

     While each one of those sabotage campaigns only served to sink a failing ship, it was the destruction of his love for Katie that struck so hard a fissure began to form.  He had met Katie earlier that year while sitting at the bar in his favorite sushi restaurant.  Due to Mia's utter hatred of all things fish, he hardly ever indulged in his love of the tiny, bite-sized food.  Returning from dropping Mia off at the airport for her Boston trip, he made a beeline for Sushi Zushi.  Both being solo diners and fortuitously sitting next to each other, he and Katie quickly decided sharing rolls and company made for a far better experience. 

     For those ten days they lit the world on fire.  Inseparable except for work, and even then a few sick days were used, the two were deeply entangled upon Mia's return.  He reined in his own excitement upon Mia's first night home.  She arrived flushed with excitement to tell of her adventures as an actual author being called for a meeting by a publishing house.  After they agreed to publish her book, she stayed for an intense eight day vivisection of her creation and then reassembled it into a sellable product.  Finishing her hour monologue in which he counted not a single breath, she finally turned the conversation to him. 

     With his own enthusiasm bubbling over, he painted his own version of their 10 days apart, bright and vivid.  Describing Katie in such loving detail that the words raked their pointed edged down her soul until nothing was left.  So caught up in the telling of the story, he never had in inkling of what it had done to her.  Now, he had a chilling vision of her literal desire to physically hurt not just this girl but any girl who was able to penetrate this close to his heart.  The irrational thought process now coursed him that illustrated the resolve she made that night to completely control him.

Breathe

    He had never known what had caused Katie to disappear several months after injecting Mia into the situation.  It had taken him weeks upon weeks to come to terms her sudden departure and finally say it had nothing to do with him.  Now, seeing it happen through Mia's eyes he knew with a sure knowledge that this was the truth. 

     Unable to handle the thought of CJ and Katie close, touching, loving each other, Mia enacted a campaign of terror.  Careful to allow Katie to know she was the culprit without ever giving her direct proof, Katie was subjected to unauthorized charges on her credit card to outlandish websites, car length key scratches, a corn snake in shower, an autodialer that would call repeatedly until picked up scheduled to call home or work, depending on where Katie was, a cancelled flight that was only discovered when she tried to check in and since the airline stated Katie herself cancelled it was charged to rebook, but all of this Katie was determined to endure.  And endure she did until a tiny webcam's grainy recording of CJ and Katie together was emailed to her boss, mother, and half of her real estate client list.  Mia could not have asked for a better outcome than Katie's ghost like exit from CJ's life.

Breathe

      Utterly horrified at the violation, his own thoughts fought to surface on center stage, to be analyzed for the full ramifications they represented.  Despite his effort, there was still more that came crashing over him like a wave in the sea.  He wondered how there could any more, how there could be anything worse. 

    He focused on the last bit of darkness, the last corner with information she was attempting to hold back from him.  Directing his concentration, he then saw tonight's tragedy was no twist of fate.   Her asthma attack was no accident, that she had caused this asthma attack. Slipping into the bathroom, she held the delicate handkerchief laced with an allergen over her nose and inhaled deeply, knowing what it would do to her. Knowing of no other way to have their lips meet for an extended period, this was her last ditch effort to snare him.

     She gambled everything, including her life to get what she wanted. She knew if he could just feel what she felt that they would be together. The only thing was that if he got far enough to realize she did this to herself, that she used her ability in an attempt to superimpose her feelings over his, that he would hate her. She would ruin the beautiful facade that they had.

     No breathe followed.  Finally saddled with the full knowledge of what Mia really was, not the facade he had come to love and cherish, he could not do it.  He could not put his mouth upon hers again.  He could not feel the hate and blackness seep into him anymore.  His audience stood still as trees, unaware of the unspoken drama that had passed between them, but still did nothing to prevent his cessation of respiration.  He looked down at her, and with glossed eyes, watched her lips fade from the rosy pink he had restored to them, to the dusky blue of cyanosis.  He watched and did nothing to stop it. 

     "CJ?", croaked a voice behind him, timidly attempting to call him back to action after the tension of his inaction crested among the observers.  Still not roused, he turned his head to the door as the EMTs arrived. Brushing him aside, they worked rapidly with bags and tubes, and mechanically took over the traitorous artificial breathing. They loaded her up and began to wheel her away. The last thought that she had blown across to him now was the only thought pulsing through his muddled mind.  She had known.  She had known he would hate her for what she did. That the hate would black out the white hot light of her love.  She had known he would hate her, and she was right.